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O Wind, if Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

– Percy Bysshe Shelley

Maybe, according to the end of February this year! Despite the weather being frozen in late Feb, changes are a-coming. The merger of Salisbury

Arts Centre with Salisbury Playhouse and Salisbury International Arts Festival to form Wiltshire Creative, will surely bring interesting and

challenging times in 2018.

This edition brings an update on Wiltshire Creatives, an insight into proposed improvements for access at Salisbury Museum, articles from

Disability Arts Online as well as opportunities and events that may be of

interest.

Hoping that you are all having a creative New Year so far!

- Guest Editor Lorna Wilson

www.linkuparts.org.uk

facebook.com/LinkUpArts

@LUArtists

Contents:

Welcome Page 2

Wiltshire Creative: New Opportunities for Salisbury? Page 3 Salisbury Museum: Improving Access Page 4

Where are the Disabled Curators? Page 7 Sensing Helen Page 10

Events & Opportunities Page 12

Artwork in this issue Page 14

Dates for your diary Page 15

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WILTSHIRE CREATIVE- NEW

OPPORTUNITIES FOR SALISBURY? Salisbury Playhouse, with Salisbury Arts Centre and Salisbury International Arts Festival have now merged to form Wiltshire

Creative and the new organisation was launched in January 2018.

We are reproducing an article from the 7th February 2018, from Valley News who report the following:

After many years of expensively promoting and marketing Salisbury as a

city of historic interest, at home and abroad, losing the city name in the new co-operative title has caused some anger and concern among

residents and arts and entertainment organisers.

But Conservative leader of Salisbury City Council Cllr Matt Dean told Valley News it was a positive step.

“We are extremely excited about Wiltshire Creative. It has a lot to live up

to by taking over the Festival, the Playhouse and the Arts Centre to be run as one body. We will do all we can to help Wiltshire Council and to

make it a success.”

He pointed out that local authorities were supporting all three of the

organisations, but funding levels had been reduced and it made sense to cut costs and work together.

It was a ‘new model’ and he hoped it would lead to more public events in

the Market Square.

He also mentioned the current refurbishment of the Wiltshire Council-owned City Hall, the largest auditorium in the count (950 seats), and the

possibility of a new hub as part of the proposed Maltings development.

*See Issue 37 of the LUA Newsletter for a previous report on the merger as seen on the Salisbury Playhouse Website.

How does this affect LinkUpArts?

Here at LinkUpArts we’ve been chatting to other Salisbury Arts Centre

makers and creatives about their views: Exciting? Worrying? Well, don’t worry about LUA- we will still be based at Salisbury Arts Centre and our

aim to promote and support disabled artists’ work won’t change! We will

keep you updated on developments and are looking forward to developing our new relationship with Wiltshire Creative.

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IMPROVING ACCESS AT

SALISBURY MUSEUM

Adrian Green, Museum Director talks to LinkUpArts about planned

changes at the Museum…

The King’s House, home of Salisbury Museum

One of Salisbury Museum’s greatest assets is our home – the King’s

House – a wonderful grade I listed medieval building opposite Salisbury

Cathedral. The building is part of the history of Salisbury itself, so in

many ways it is appropriate that an institution that celebrates local

history should be based in it. However old buildings also present a

number of challenges, one is the hefty maintenance costs and the other

are the problems with physical access, particularly to the first floor, which

is impossible or very difficult for some visitors and volunteers.

Our access problems are one thing we are determined to change. In 2008

we commissioned an architect and exhibition design company called

Metaphor to look at how we could redevelop the museum for 21st century

audiences. In terms of access one thing they were quick to point out are

the huge number of first floor level changes. If one was to walk from one

end of the building to the other the level changes 11 times! This is

because the building has been extended numerous times since 15th

century, and each alteration and extension has been on a different level.

It also means it would be impossible to insert a lift that would create a

single access point to the first floor without huge alterations that would be

costly and unlikely to get planning consent.

The building masterplan that Metaphor produced suggested opening up

access to as much of the ground floor as possible – which thankfully is

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fairly level. On the first floor the plans specified two lifts to provide access

to the only public areas – a large new meeting room and the King’s Room.

The latter is the architectural jewel in the museum’s crown, a fantastic

former dining room with a decorated plaster ceiling dating back to the

17th century. It also houses our ceramics collection and has a dual aspect

– with views out the front towards the Cathedral and back towards the

water meadows. It is called the King’s Room because James I dined there

when he visited in 1610 and 1613 – in fact his two visits are why we are

called the King’s House. This room would be perfect for events and

functions if we could provide access to a wider range of people.

Proposals for the restoration of the King’s Room

The first part of our masterplan, the refurbishment of our archaeology

galleries, was completed in 2014. It cost £2.4 million with a grant of £1.8

million from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). In 2016 we submitted

another more substantial bid to the HLF to continue with our masterplan.

This was a £9.5 million project – £7.5 million of which we sought from the

HLF. The five aims of the project were:

● Restoring, renewing and repurposing the building, enabling it to

show more of our collections and provide flexible spaces for learning

and engagement.

● Creating a new Salisbury Gallery telling the City’s story from 1220

to 2020, rooting the narrative in the stories of local people and the

objects in our significant collections of archaeology, art, costume

and social history.

● Re-displaying our exceptional collection of 18th and 19th century

ceramics within the context of the historic 17th century core of our

magnificent building.

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● Developing larger, top quality temporary exhibition spaces to build

on our reputation for major exhibitions, and enabling increased

access to our collections.

● Building our audiences, diversifying our income streams, and

thereby ensuring our business model is self-sustaining.

This included the two new lifts mentioned above. Initial consultation with

Wiltshire Council and Historic England suggested that our outline plans,

subject to further investigative work, were acceptable.

Sadly we discovered in April that were unsuccessful with our major HLF

application. The competition for grants in 2017 was intense. Due to fewer

people playing the lottery the available funds have decreased; there were

bids from over 20 organisations totalling £220 million yet the HLF only

had £40 million to give away. Our bid was also weak because we did not

put enough in it for the maintenance and conservation work we need to

do on our building, plus they felt we could do the project in phases.

Despite this knock back we remain undaunted and will be reapplying in

2018. This time we are looking at a phased scheme that will concentrate

on the work to the Salisbury Gallery and the King’s Room so we can

secure first floor access to at least one part of the building. As part the

project we will integrate our costume collection into the Salisbury Gallery,

plus we will no longer have any small temporary exhibitions on the first

floor because we would look to increase the capacity of the ground floor

facilities. This project will cost just over £4 million and we hope to secure

at least £3 million from the HLF. The remainder will be raised from trusts

and foundations.

In the meantime we are also tackling another accessibility issue, our

toilets. We are fortunate that we have a toilet for some people with

disabilities, but in order to use the facilities a disabled visitor would need

help from a carer. The main door to the toilets is impossible to push open

if you are seated in a wheelchair. In addition the facilities in the disabled

toilet are not configured properly, and we also have the space to have a

large changing bench inserted. We have launched a small fundraising

campaign to raise the £30,000 needed to make the changes and improve

the general décor of the toilets – if you are interested in supporting the

campaign please visit our website:

http://salisburymuseum.org.uk/news/we-are-going-potty

By Adrian Green

http://www.salisburymuseum.org.uk

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WHERE ARE THE DISABLED

CURATORS?

Our thanks to Disability Arts Online for allowing us to reproduce

an extract from Aidan Moesby’s article which discusses the thorny

issue of the lack of Disabled Curators

Image left: ‘Like This’ © Aiden Moesby

I was interested to read a curator’s perspective

on Unlimited, What’s Changed? by Rose

Lejeune earlier this year. Particularly so, given

that Unlimited doesn’t work with a curatorial

model but that of a producer model. The more I

thought about my response to the article, so the

reach of a personal response extended.

I want to be transparent, to make my position

perfectly clear. I benefit directly and indirectly from the work of Unlimited. In 2013, I received an

R&D commission, I participated on the collaborative residency Unfixed in 2016 – a

singularly life changing experience – and I regularly talk on panels around issues of disability

and art. I also chair the emerging artist panel for commissions.

When I applied for that first Unlimited commission I did not know what a producer was, let alone how to meet one, work with one or what that working process would involve. I was used to the curator, I sort of knew what they did

and how they worked. I was still very much an emerging artist in 2013.

Since then I have gone on to complete an MA Curating, which together with the development of my arts practice, has led me to think more about the role of the

curator, their perceived absence and the predominance of the producer model within Unlimited. However, this is secondary to my thoughts on the position of the disabled artist, and disabled curator, in the broadest context of the ‘art

world’.

Unlimited has pushed and developed disabled-led arts practices forward. The quality of performance particularly has significantly improved, transcending the

reticence and resistance of the mainstream programmers and audiences to ‘niche’ work that’s ‘not for us’ to making it high quality desirable cultural

feasting. Unfortunately, the push, exposure and development of performance has not been mirrored in the more traditionally gallery based, visual arts.

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Image © Aidan Moesby

Yes, there are visual arts

commissions, but where are the

galleries jumping at the opportunity to be part of this and show their work? I often hear that a major

stumbling block to getting a gallery on board is that they operate 2-3

years in advance. Unlimited has been going since before 2012, yet there isn’t time and space in the

programme for this long relationship building that’s required between artists, producers, curators and galleries.

A search on tate.org.uk for disabled artists returns 41 results and disabled

curators only 4 – although results for actual people are even more sparse.

Disabled Artists are generally perceived to have little or no professional skill, no economic value and no value in a societal or cultural context. Generalisations

possibly, but attitudes I have experienced. The context dictates value.

I would argue that my lived experience of disability allows me to bring more to my work. I am not a lesser being with less experiences. Disability is a part of me. It is not all of me, in the same way as I wear glasses which do not define

me.

Agency, the ability to self-determine or execute your own will, is incredibly important. Perhaps this is one of the implicit strengths of the social model of

disability. However, in the art world the sense of agency can seem reduced or absent. On a personal level this has been

akin to the charity model in the past; I was so grateful at having work that I would accept any conditions to be seen

as a valued and respected professional artist (no matter how small the value as

an emerging artist).

‘Silence’ © Aidan Moesby

There were times when I tried to keep a

mainstream portfolio and disabled portfolio discrete from each other before becoming open and public about my mental health condition. I soon saw the

futility, and difficulty of this. I also realised I was being complicit in my own stigmatisation and marginalisation. Yes, I make work which overtly references my experience of discrimination, but I also make work which has nothing at all

to do with disability – and yet they are viewed rightly or wrongly through the same diminishing lens.

How, as a disabled artist, do you get your work seen, out there, in front of the

people who have the ‘agency’? Curators are the gatekeepers of the gallery, the rarefied atmosphere of the white cube. In my experience curators are largely

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incredibly difficult to contact. In 2012, I received a Grants for the Arts to research my own practice through talking to peers and professionals. Of all the

curators I wrote to inviting a conversation, not one in the UK acknowledged my e-mail. In stark contrast I managed to meet with directors of galleries, museums

and national organisations in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. In fact it was not until I studied for my MA Curating that I actually got to talk to curators in the UK. Now, for an artist, they are as elusive and unapproachable as ever.

My academic experience was in a mainstream context. There was no mention of disability or diversity within the context of the MA, unless I raised it. What does

this say about the ease with which disabled artists

and disabled curators exist within the largely mainstream ecology of the art world? We are written

out of the canon of art history time and time again.

Image Left: ‘Open Sore (wings detail)’ © Aidan Moesby

For me the access needs must be locked in from the start of any creative process. My access needs are all

around the psychological rather than the physical, if those support mechanisms are not in place,

regardless of whether or not I may need to use them, then it is extremely difficult for me to work. For

example, in my residencies with organisations I always ensure rest days are in the contract and built in latitude for the unforeseen, having a key person to

contact who I feel ‘safe and comfortable’ with – these are foundational not retrofitted.

How does a curator become aware of a disabled artist who cannot attend

openings or who experiences social anxiety of networking or economic barriers to getting their work shown in appropriate galleries? How does an artist get exposure if they exist in digital poverty or experience the toxicity of social media

and cannot engage online comfortably – and when anything other than small manageable chunks of exposure to the ‘real world’ are overwhelming?

What is the first step on the ladder for a disabled artist to begin to be

professionally and economically viable and sustainable when the web of personal benefits, tax credits, universal credit, DLA, PIP, is so complex that the fear of

losing a safety net or parachute is too much to navigate or bear? This is not even addressing the issue of ability, critical rigour, talent or luck…

By Aidan Moesby

To read the full article, visit http://disabilityarts.online/magazine/opinion/where-

are-the-disabled-curators/

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SENSING HELEN

Our thanks to Disability Arts Online for allowing us to reproduce this blog by Tam Gilbert

My second blog post comes slightly later than I would have liked; so much has

happened in the last few months, it has taken a while to process.

The Sensing Helen project is

now well underway. We’ve finished our Research, which

took us out of Dorset and on a road-trip to Bristol and have started to share it with the Arts

Award group at Victoria Education Centre who are part

of Liveability and linked to Holton Lee and other young people (to be discussed in my

next post.)

October and November saw us as semi-permanent residents at

Dorset History Centre (www.dorsetarchivestrust.org), home to over a thousand

years of Dorset Archive material. We were here for two purposes: to receive Oral History Training to enable us to gather 10 oral histories later in the project, and

also to actually conduct our Research and find material for workshops.

Our Oral History Training was led by Maria Gayton, Community Engagement

Officer and her team. We’d invited students from Victoria Education Centre’s Broadcasting group to join us for the day, which allowed us to introduce

ourselves and Helen Keller to some of our young people and start to learn a few names.

Training began with a tour of the public and non-public areas of the Archives, hearing about safety

and archived document storage mechanics (both equally fascinating to the team and the young people!) We then listened to a selection of audio

interviews, learning the protocol for recording and collecting information and questioning. The

students, who have their own Radio station in school, were able to practice on volunteers, making sure they included all the Meta data

needed about the interviewee for archive purposes.

Image left: Order for the reception of a Pauper patient: Elizabeth Groves

After months of planning Sensing Helen, it felt

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wonderful to actually meet some of the participants benefitting from our endeavours and it helped me re-focus and ensure I find some juicy material for

them!

Our time-frame for the Research began with 1880s Dorset, to tie in with Helen’s early years, with a focus on the records of women, rather than men, who were identified as having a visual impairment. An initial search through the online

catalogue suggested a few suitable looking entries, so our four Research days looked hopeful! But before we could get started, we needed an initial training

session with Maria. I’d expected a long lecture or a few handouts about methodology, with any Research taking place on another day, so I was excited when after only a brief introduction we were issued with library cards and got

down to business!

We’d discussed various avenues with Maria beforehand, and the table was adorned with huge books for us to go through. “The best way to learn” she said, “[was] just to get stuck in.” And, it would be difficult to find individual records,

so we needed to go through the huge volumes of hand-written entries for Dorset County Lunatic Asylum – later known as Herrison Hospital, at Charlton Down –

and we’d soon get our eye in…

Of course, for someone with a visual impairment, this proved untrue – even the

Ocular Viewer (a magnifier) didn’t help as the writing was so small and illegible – not much dissimilar to doctors’ handwriting today. We started with the team

reading every entry to me out loud, but this proved slow work and it was faster for them to scan the page to see who was admitted as ‘blind.’ We found that women were being sent by their families for all manner of reasons which had

nothing to do with Mental Health, the primary reason for being admitted. Many suffered from broken hearts and we even found a young woman who had fainted

from exhaustion (which can’t have been helped by wearing a tight-fitting corset) after travelling on the Railway!

It was beginning to feel like an impossibly inaccessible task, when, at the end of our first day a name sprang out which I recognised from our initial online search! Elizabeth Groves had been admitted on 23rd September 1889, aged 31 and was

described both as “almost quite blind” and also “a blind girl [who] is extremely troublesome… quarrelling with those admit here… talks incessantly and then

cries without reason.”

Although I had expected to see some outdated language, it still hit me hard to

see a young woman described in this way. Reading on, I found against all odds, Elizabeth was educated – she possessed braille scriptures which she read “over

and over.” This immediately drew comparisons with Helen – both women were feisty achievers, whom circumstance dealt very different outcomes. I felt drawn to Elizabeth Groves and felt sure she was just a frustrated woman battling a

Non-understanding, male dominated System. We found her admission document, which, unbelievably, was pristine, 128 years later! I started to use

the Census to delve further – an accessible computerised tool, which I shall discuss more, along with the rest of our Research in my next post.

#SensingHelen @HLFSouthWest

By Tam Gilbert

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EVENTS & OPPORTUNITIES

Check out these opportunities over the Spring months…

SENSING HELEN: A CALL OUT FOR PARTICIPANTS.

WE ARE SEEKING DORSET WOMEN WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENTS FOR ORAL HISTORIES throught March/April 2018

LUA’s Tam Gilbert, a Dorset based

visually impaired artist, has been awarded funding from the Heritage

Lottery Fund to research the stories of visually impaired women

in Victorian Dorset and Today.

The next part of Tam’s research is to collect oral histories from blind /

visually impaired women across Dorset throughout March. The oral histories will focus on memories

of growing up, school days and experiences of navigating life as a visually impaired woman in Dorset today.

Each oral history will take the form of an informal interview / conversation

which will be recorded and stored in Dorset History Centre’s permanent collections, and serve as a lasting Living History! If you are a blind or

visually impaired woman who would be happy to share your oral history with us, or know someone who would be interested in taking part, please

contact Jen on 01752 516265 or jenny@yummyjam.co.uk.

To read more about the project you can follow Tam’s blog here

http://disabilityarts.online/sensing-helen-dorset-history-centre-training-and-initial-research/

http://disabilityarts.online/sensing-helen-story-fa

The project is managed by the Arts Development Company in partnership

with Persuasion Arts, Dorset History Centre, Victoria Education Centre, SENSING HELEN: A CALL OUT FOR PARTICIPANTS.

Dorset Blind Association, The Priest's House Museum and Disability Arts Online

See: www.persuasionarts.co.uk/sensing-helen

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SENSING HELEN: DOCUMENTARY SHARINGS

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EVENTS AT SALISBURY ARTS CENTRE

If you’re planning to come to the Salisbury Arts Centre this spring, you

may be interested in…

ZONE CLUB

31 Mar 2018,

Workshops 10am - 2.30pm

A music and filmmaking club for adults

with learning disabilities, aged 16 and

over. Have fun making music and

films with new friends. Booking

Details:£18 per session (A £1

transaction fee applies)

HOMEGROWN: THE ARTISTS 2018

27 Feb - 21 Apr 2018. 10am -3pm

FREE entry

About

The exhibition HOMEGROWN: The Artists 2018; will display the wealth of talent and skills of the Centre’s artists and tutors as well as present to the wider

community the Centre’s continuing commitment to delivering an engagement programme of the highest quality.

ARTWORK IN THIS ISSUE

Cover Lorna Wilson

Pages 4 -5 Photographs provided by Salisbury Museum

Pages 7 – 9 Photographs by Aidan Moesby

Pages 10 – 13 Photographs from the project ‘Sensing Helen’. Photographs by Alastair Nisbet, poster design by

Naomi Booth and Jenny Gordon

Page 14 Zone Club at Salisbury Arts Centre

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DATES FOR THE DIARY

Café LUA (2-4pm at Salisbury Arts Centre)

● Wednesday 11th April 2018

● Wednesday 9th May 2018

Café LUA is a social get-together for disabled artists, an informal, open

space for inspiration and discussion. However you are involved with or

interested in the arts, do come along and meet us, find out about us, and

about Disability Arts. We’d love to meet you and hear more about your

arts practice or interests. We usually meet in the café area, but specific

projects can mean we are in one of the work spaces, do ask at the Box

Office if you are in any doubt. Come and join us and find out about more

about current and future projects.

At the heart of LinkUpArts:

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NEWSLETTER FORMATS

You can receive this Newsletter in print form, it is available in bigger type and an audio cassette. You can also download it

from salisburyartscentre.co.uk –> Resident Companies ->LinkUpArts

Gini

Creative direction

Administration

admin@linkuparts.org.uk

LinkUpArts, Salisbury Arts Centre, Bedwin Street, Salisbury, SP1 3UT Arts Centre Enquiries: 01722 343 020 LinkUpArts and Salisbury Arts Centre work together for the benefit of both organisations. LUA advises and consults with Salisbury Arts Centre on its

Disability Arts programming and helps to promote the events. Salisbury Arts Centre gives LUA its home and provides marketing and administrative support. LUA is a strategic creative partner in Salisbury Arts Centre’s

Creative Family. Registered office: Salisbury Arts Centre, Bedwin Street, Salisbury Wiltshire, SP1 3USt.

Edmunds Arts Trust is a company limited by guarantee, trading as Salisbury Arts Centre.

Registration no.1412263, incorporated in Wales, and a Registered Charity no. 1023945